New game: "A Vampyre Story"!

New game!

Bill Tiller released A Vampyre Story about ten years after LucasArts' The Curse of Monkey Island was the height of point 'n click adventure gaming, yet it shows many similarities to that classic. The backgrounds have this amazing, Don Bluth animated movie type of graphics style, and the user interface utilizes a variety of the verb coin. Having played for the first hour, this feels like a very slow-paced game, where you need patience to explore since there are quite a lot of hotspots to examine. 

No, Harry, they're gargoyles, not flying house elves...

You play as Mona De Lafitte, a former Parisian opera singer who fell under the spell of vampire Shrowdy von Kiefer. Shrowdy kidnaps Mona and takes her to live with him at Castle Warg in Draxilvania. One day, however, Shrowdy is killed by vampire hunters, and Mona is left alone to escape the castle and return to Paris, finally free of her vampire master's spell.

A verb cross instead of a coin...

Though alone she actually is not. Froderick the bat is her constant companion, good for most of the jokes in this game, the way Max was in Sam & Max Hit the Road. They kind of have the same accent as well, by the way. It's an awesome voice actor in any case. Mona herself has a higher pitched voice in a French accent that totally fits the role yet might not be for everyone's ears. Examining objects does take longer than in other adventure games, however, since Froderick often insists on giving his own opinion as well after Mona's, usually including one pun or other - which might get to feel a bit tiresome if you're an impatient gamer who wants to move on.

Oeh la la, ze bedroom!

Mona is obviously a lady, wearing a pocketless dress, and only limited space in her coffin for keepsakes. So she doesn't pick up everything she encounters, even if she admits the items could be useful. But she does store the idea of the items away, remembering where she can find them should the need ever arise to use them. I thought this was both quite funny and more realistic than your average adventure game.

Appropriate inventory system...

It's funny that Mona doesn't acknowledge her actually being a vampire herself, insisting that she's drinking wine instead of blood. Funny, because she does have the ability to change into a bat herself, with one option in the verb cross allowing her to fly over things. Also when you want to use a heavier or larger item she didn't pick up yet, she turns into a bat to go retrieve up from wherever she saw it earlier.

Let it go, let it goooo!

The primary objective is to get a secret key from a gargoyle so Mona can leave her limited living quarters and explore the rest of the castle. A typical tit for tat presents itself, so figuring out how exactly to accomplish that will be my next endeavour. I was also able to open up a hatch in the torture chamber, but neither Mona nor Froderick will go down there because of the smell, and Mona's small perfume bottles aren't enough to banish the odor. So I'm hoping to discover a solution for this puzzle as I play on.

You can find A Vampyre Story on Steam!